Former chef and brewer Max Meighen recently sold his Toronto restaurant to move to Copenhagen and focus on Serviette, the food magazine he launched in 2022.

What are you doing this Monday morning?
My Monday mornings have looked very different of late. I recently moved to Copenhagen so I am settling into an entirely new morning routine. I have really taken to the standard Copenhagen breakfast of a sourdough bun with butter and cheese. It is somehow simultaneously a little austere and a little indulgent.

This morning I am having coffee with a few different people from across the creative and food scenes in the city. With everything still being so new, I am eager to meet anyone I can.

Describe your work environment.
My working environment is very changeable these days. This morning I am working from the Airbnb I have been staying while looking for a more permanent rental. Other days, I might work from a café, the Copenhagen Soho House, or, at a certain point in the day, a restaurant bar. I actually work quite well amidst the chaos of a busy dining room! Maybe it is because so much of my work is done on my own, I appreciate being surrounded other busy folks.

Which magazine do you first remember?
My earliest memory of magazines were the stacks of design and interior magazines that piled up in my parents bedroom and study. One of the biggest stacks was of Canadian House and Home, an interiors magazine that included a sizeable culinary section. At some point, when I was maybe four or five, our house was featured in the magazine, and I was even asked to pose in one of the pictures, sat on a counter, eating an apple. I remember thinking it was really odd when they told me I should not bite into the apple. Apparently, it looks more believable that way!

There are some amazing and influential magazines that I wish were still around. Lucky Peach for its singular and honest reflection, for both good and bad, of the hospitality industry. I also really miss Lapham’s Quarterly, Intelligent Life and Ambrosia.

If I had to pick a current magazine, I would have to say Monocle. From the perspective of a reader, it manages to be both an aspirational and useful publication. I don’t know of another publication that can make long form reporting on infrastructure as sound as exciting and galvanizing as Monocle can. From the perspective of a publisher, it undoubtedly has established the framework for what a successful magazine brand can be in the current publishing landscape. Each brand extension is perfectly chosen and pulled off with such precision.


What other piece of media would you recommend? 
I just finished rewatching the entirety of ‘Shrinking’ on AppleTV. For me, there is no more potent storytelling combination than comedy and tragedy and this series is mostly laughs with intensely heartfelt moments that hit all the harder because of the humour. As we are getting close the end of the year, I am also at the start my annual revisit of the podcast ‘My Dad Wrote a Porno.’ Cannot recommend it enough.

Describe Serviette in three words
Epicurean. Pensive. Lush

There are a lot of indie food mags on our shelves these days… What is Serviette’s angle on the subject?
Our unique angle on food is not necessarily treating it as the subject. For me there is no better vehicle than food to explore, understand and celebrate everything important in our world. While we are a food magazine, we get to explore topics like design, urbanism, architecture, comedy or politics in depth and that keeps things fresh and exciting.

Tell us about your restaurant and background in food.
Until recently, I ran a restaurant, brewery, and urban farm in Toronto. Our mission was to support and celebrate circular and regenerative food systems across the region. Having all three operations on the same site let us experiment and innovate constantly with projects like turning waste brewery water into irrigation or using unsold bread in a German-style wheat beer.

With the rooftop farm, not only were we able to show people the sort of regenerative practices that our suppliers were employing in their fields, but we were then able to let people taste the difference responsible farming makes in the food. We opened in the summer of 2019 and immediately started sending out a newsletter that covered all of the behind the scenes work. When the pandemic shut everything down just a few months later, I really felt the loss of that exploration around food and exciting ideas. Serviette grew out of a desire to double down on that exploration.

Show us one spread that sums up how the magazine works
This is the opening spread for a story we ran about the parallel worlds of the two potato crips brands, both called Tayto. In Northern Ireland and the Republic alike, there exists Tayto and their accompanying mascots. These mascots are sent out, across the world in an exercise of culinary soft power. This opening spread sees Free Stato amidst the dunes of the Namibian desert. To me, this is a perfect Serviette story in the way that food can be both whimsical fun and serious diplomacy. His dopey smile and the almost otherworldly backdrop never fails to make me smile.

The Serviette team: Rebecca Gao, Digital editor; Max Meighen, editor; Nicola Hamilton, Creative director; and Caitlin Stall-Paquet, Editorial director.

What has publishing the magazine taught you that may be helpful to anyone else planning to launch one?
Pretty much by definition, a magazine is a collaborative project. I have been incredibly lucky to work with some of the most talented and committed co-conspirators. If any magazine is going to have any sort of longevity, you have to have a great team.

What are you most looking forward to this coming week?
I am off to London this week for a very short visit with some of our favourite retailers as well as to record an episode of the indie magazine podcast, The Stack. Having lived in London in my early 20s, I am have an unshakable fondness for the city and look for any excuse to return.

Publisher Max Meighen
Editorial director Caitlin Stall-Paquet 
Art director Nicola Hamilton

serviettemag.com